The present invention relates to a semiconductor component and to a method for production of a semiconductor component.
A semiconductor chip that is mounted on a chip carrier or a leadframe and is electrically connected or bonded thereto by using connecting wires, for example, is usually encapsulated in a molding compound in order to form a semiconductor housing. These semiconductor housings are normally produced from a plastic. Thermosetting plastics, in particular epoxy resin, are used particularly extensively for this purpose.
However, these encapsulating compounds have inadequate adhesion to the boundary interfaces or surfaces of the semiconductor chip or of the chip carrier which they enclose or adjoin. This leads to increased failure and fault risks for the semiconductor component, and not least to device qualifications not being passed.
In order to ensure sufficient adhesion in accordance with the requirements made of the semiconductor component and in accordance with the device qualifications, in the prior art a highly targeted and complicated selection and evaluation of suitable molding compounds was undertaken and the chip carrier, leadframe or substrate surfaces were treated by using complicated mechanical methods, such as roughening the surfaces to be connected, etc. Moreover, physico-chemical methods such as plasma-etching, electrolytic coating with adhesion-enhancing layers based on inorganic, metallic compounds were carried out in order to ensure sufficient adhesion.
However, the abovementioned mechanical or physico-chemical methods for achieving an enhancement of adhesion between the molding compound and a substrate give rise to very high process costs and the disadvantage of restricting the application to electrically conductive surfaces. Moreover, these methods also led only in part to the desired or required enhancement of the molding compound adhesion.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.